What you don’t tell your consumers may hurt you

My wife and I have been in the market for medical insurance. We drew up a list of must-have features, and asked our bank to recommend some insurance companies. One of the companies that we got to talk to had an impressive sales person. He was a company veteran, and gave us a long spiel on product features, pricing, customer support, and things we didn’t even think of asking. So, we asked him about their claim settlement ratio compared with the competition. Instead of a short direct response that the question warranted, he gave a longwinded speech that left us none the wiser. So when he left, we got on Google.

They were lagging competition. Their website too, was completely silent on information related to claim settlement. Our search also told us that consumers had discovered exclusions in their product, which the salesperson was not quite explicit about. We moved on to another insurance provider.

Unfortunately, this is not an isolated experience. Too many brands take too much pain to suppress information that they deem will not serve their interests. When was the last time you saw a brand help consumers access information that may potentially weaken their case to complete a transaction? Like sharing benchmarking data? Or telling you when you shouldn’t be using their product? Most brands get too busy being the hero of their perfect story, even though most consumers aren’t paying attention to, or will not believe that story. Given how easily information is accessible, and how hungry consumers are for transparency, this approach is both shortsighted and silly.

Image credit: Getty

According to a November 2015 survey by FleishmanHillard, consumers value brand transparency above cost. 68% of respondents in another global survey considered it important for brands to communicate openly and transparently about how their products are sourced and made. It takes a rare brand to openly communicate with its consumers on their concerns. McDonald’s Canada did. With the “Our Food. Your Questions.” digital platform, McDonald’s encouraged consumers to ask their toughest questions. In exchange, McDonald’s promised to provide clear and concise answers. Through this interaction, the brand managed to dramatically increase customer engagement (average visitor spent 4 ½ minutes reading 12 questions) and began to instill greater trust among consumers around its sourcing and quality practices.

Beyond offering information on their work practices, one area where brands can do, a significantly better job is in helping consumers make purchase decisions. Consumers need different information at different stages, and they search using all sources and channels. Many brands are completely absent at this stage because they don’t pay attention to ustill we are actively looking to buy their product. Some remain passive watchers, only stepping in when we show up in their SEO net. However, some brands become highly biased participants in this process. As a result, we as consumers distrust and discount most of the information that we get from brands. This is unfortunate for both consumer and brand.

For us, it increases the complexity of decision making since we miss a source of information that is potentially accurate. For the brand, it significantly reduces its ability to influence the decision since the information provided is perceived as biased/untrustworthy.

Why do more brands not play a bigger role in helping consumers make purchase decisions? Is it the fear of being “found out”? Or the belief that money spent on consumers has to result in direct leads and transactions? Amazon allows other sites to both advertise and display price information on their product pages. What that does for me is increase my reliance on Amazon as a trustworthy source of pricing and product information.

In the context of purchase decisions, “trust” is not always about trusting the brand; it is about trusting the information gathered. One research showed that consumers were 86% more likely to opt for brands that played a helpful role in simplifying and the purchase-decision journey. Brands that understand where a consumer is in the journey, anticipate his/her needs, provide trustworthy information, and yet continue to make a case for their own product without manipulating the consumer. Even if this means involving touchpoints that are outside a brand’s direct control.

Going back to my story of buying insurance, why couldn’t insurance companies allow me to compare prices, exclusions, and claim settlement ratios, on their websites realising fully that I would do that on third party sites anyway? By not recognizing the information needs of consumers, and choosing not to fulfil them, brands give up a big role that they can play while building trust and credibility in the process. They allow the lure of the individual transaction to trump the possibility of a trusted relationship.

Now if you will excuse me, I have to go and research if I am overpaying for my broadband service. What is the chance that my existing provider will help me with this analysis?

DISCLAIMER: The views expressed are solely of the author and ETBrandEquity.com does not necessarily subscribe to it. ETBrandEquity.com shall not be responsible for any damage caused to any person/organisation directly or indirectly.